Roots - Skimboard History

Roots

Skimboard History

By Craig Lockwood – former Laguna Beach lifeguard

Written for Skimboard Magazine in 1989

“What’ve you got?”

Skimboard’ Publisher Ed Contreras was waiting underneath the big oak tree outside the magazine’s door. I’d called 15 minutes before, telling him to meet me.

“A real scoop,” I said. “The earliest skimming photo I have ever seen.”

Contreras eyes widened. “How old?”

“Nineteen twenty-nine. Sixty years old.”

Ed grabbed the faded 5x7’s and studied them intently. “Where were they taken?”” Right here on Main Beach. Local guys.”

“I had no idea skimming was this old. Did you?” Contreras said. I shook my head.

“Always thought it started in the fifties.”

The photos, however, were proof. Documented evidence. This kicked the earlier estimates back by 25 years. And it placed the birth place of the sport – for now- at Laguna Beach.

“Blows me away,” Ed Whistled. “This is so rad. Look at this dude. He’s lined up here. Look at this shot. Setting up for a spinner. Here he is the water.”

“Who is this guy? Is he still alive?” “Ed asked.

“Former lifeguard. Names George Griffith. He’s alive. He sent the photos to me.”

“We gotta do a story on this.” Ed said.

I nodded.

Here’s that story:

Skimboarding’s origins are probably lost in history’s mists. The facts are skimpy. The research is just beginning. I’m no historian – just a journalist. Journalist start their investigation by asking the five W’s.

Who tried skimming first?

When did skimming start?

Where did skimming start?

What were the boards like?

Why did the sport develop?

These questions may never be fully answered. Scholarship – the carefully systematized study of the subject – hasn’t been applied to skimboarding. This may be the first document reference to skimming’s historic origins. That’s called “primary source.”

Skimboarding probably started with bellysliding. Bellysliders use their chests for the planning surface. This was a sport for people with good backs. Bellysliding attrition rate is notably high – back injurywise.

Bellysliding was practiced in Hawaii at the time of Captain Cook’s arrival in 1778. Later, sailors off whaling ships picked up the rudiments. These moves gradually diffused, probably reaching California after the 1849 Gold Rush.

What happened next is unclear. Who was the first person to actually take a board, thro it on the water-covered sand, jump on and successfully ride standing up?

We may never know.

What we do know is that by 1929 – three months before the United States was plunged into the Great Depression – two young Laguna lifeguards made boards and started skimming. Luckily, one of them had camera and documented the event.

As we go to press – these are the earliest know documented photographs of skimming. The “provenance” or historical origin of these photos is verifiable.

Modern skimboarding started on a typical hazy June day in 1929. The place: Main Beach in Laguna Beach. Skimming’s first riders: George Griffith and Graeme Smith. Smith’s nick name was “Jimmy.” Both men – in their late 70’s – are still alive. Griffith is in good health and very active. Smith – whose hearing is impaired – is still blessed with good memory. Two brief interviews with each man were conducted over the phone. Rosemary Smith, Jimmy’s wife of 47 years, relayed my questions back and forth. Rosemary, growing up in Newport Beach, learned bellysliding, practiced it into the 20s.

Griffith and Smith were among the first lifeguards. In May of 1929 they were sent to San Diego to train in advanced lifesaving techniques. While there they saw a saw a man free boarding on and an “aquaplane” behind a boat.

The aquaplane was a tombstone-shape board 6 feet long. A bridle was fixed to the board and connected to the boat. The rider held the line attached to the board’s nose. Aquaplanes were made by Tom Blake, a Santa Monica lifeguard, who made surfboards and rescue equipment.

The innovation Griffith and Smith witnessed was the rider detaching the tow bridle and freeboarding holding only the towline.

The young Lagunans were impressed. Griffith made mental notes on the aquaplane’s construction. Driving back to Laguna they discussed it.

Once home, Smith made a board.

“I got the wood from an old redwood oil company sign,” Smith said. It was about six feet long two feet six inches wide.”

“I made another board,” Griffith recalls. “It was smaller, about five feet long and two feet wide. I used half inch marine plywood. I put three oak battens on it. One on the nose. The other was on the tail and the third about in the middle. These were to hold the rocker and to give it rigidity. I cut a keyhole in the nose that allowed us to tow the board behind a boat.”

Griffith counter sank the screws which held the battens on. He fined-sanded the board giving it multiple coats of varnish.

But boat tows were scarce so Smith and Griffith towed each other. This required a model-T Ford and a long stretch of Huntington’s open beach. Fun, tiring.

“Talk about raspberries!” Griffith chuckled as he described a 40-mph endo.

In June Don “Squeak” Squires, Smith’s classmate from Santa Ana College, showed up in Laguna. Smith guesses that Squires had grown up in Seal Beach – Huntington area. He isn’t certain. Squires – now deceased – was unavailable for comment.

Squires had apparently learned or developed basis skimming technique. He showed this to Smith and Griffith. They proved to be good students.

Developing more advanced techniques of skimming was a natural progression. Griffith and Smith quickly refined the techniques of running, dropping the board and skimming into the wave and turning back to the beach.

In the annals of skimming this is roughly equivalent to inventing the wheel.

Think of it this way: So remarkable was Smith and Griffith’s accomplishment that without it skimboarding wouldn’t be where it is today.

One generation taught the next. Other young Laguna boys caught skim-fever. Ed Hobert – former Chief Lifeguard, now in his 70s – remembers learning on another lifeguard’s board. The year was 1931.

“Dana Lamb made a skimboard five feet six inches long. The board was beautifully varnished and Dana wood burned a design on the deck. That board was shaped like a surfboard, exceptionally fast and maneuverable.”

Laguna Beach always had a tradition of skimboarding. Beach-oriented kids raised in Laguna learned the rudiments on homemade boards. Growing up at Crescent Bay – two miles north of Victoria – I learned.

Later as a lifeguard at Wood’s Cove in the late ‘60s I watched Hendy and his brothers learn skimming rudiments. I kept two round boards in my tower for the local grems. Wood’s Cove is the fifth cove north of Aliso Cove. Guy Westgaard’s dad Dean was a Laguna lifeguard and my supervisor.

Tex Haines – lived one cove up from Aliso. It was here Tex and Guy began reshaping skimming’s history.

Tex has been called the “father” of skimboarding. Strictly speaking- this isn’t accurate. Tex did far more. Tex revolutionized it. He took a beach pastime and guided it into a full-blown competitive activity.

Tex, Guy and Hendy – are lineal descendants of those early Laguna Beach skimmers. These photographs are proof of that unbroken lineage. Fifty-nine years of skimming history.

Roots.